Armies claiming to bring prosperity have instead brought a misery worse than
under the cruellest of modern dictators

By Simon Jenkins

10/25/06 "The
Guardian" -- -- British ministers landing in Aden in the 1960s
were told always to make a reassuring speech. In view of the Arab insurrection,
they should give a ringing pledge, "Britain will never, ever leave Aden".
Britain promptly left Aden, in 1967 and a year earlier than planned. The last
governor walked backwards up the steps to his plane, his pistol drawn against
any last-minute assassin. Locals who had trusted him and worked with the British
were massacred in their hundreds by the fedayeen.

Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, was welcomed to London by the BBC on
Monday with two documentaries recalling past British humiliations at the hands
of Arabs, in Aden and Suez. It was not a message Salih wanted to hear. His
government is retreating from its position in May, when it said that foreign
forces should withdraw from 16 out of 18 provinces, including the south, by the
end of this year. Tony Blair rejected this invitation to go and said he would
"stay until the job is done". Salih would do well to remember what western
governments do, not what they say.

Despite Suez and Aden, British foreign policy still lurches into imperial mode
by default. An inherited belief in Britain's duty to order the world is
triggered by some upstart ruler who must be suppressed, based on a vague desire
to seek "regional stability" or protect a British interest. As Martin Woollacott
remarks in his book After Suez, most people at the time resorted to denial. To
them, "the worst aspect of the operation was its foolishness" rather than its
wrongness. When asked by Montgomery what was his objective in invading the canal
zone Eden replied, "to knock Nasser off his perch". Asked what then, Eden had no
answer.

As for Iraq, the swelling chorus of born-again critics are likewise taking
refuge not in denouncing the mission but in complaining about the mendacity that
underpinned it and its incompetence. As always, turncoats attribute the failure
of a once-favoured policy to another's inept handling of it. The truth is that
the English-speaking world still cannot kick the habit of imposing its own
values on the rest, and must pay the price for its arrogance.

US and UK policy in Iraq is now entering its retreat phrase. Where there is no
hope of victory, the necessity for victory must be asserted ever more strongly.
This was the theme of yesterday's unreal US press conference in Baghdad,
identical in substance to one I attended there three years ago. There is talk of
staying the course, of sticking by friends and of not cutting and running. Every
day some general or diplomat hints at ultimatums, timelines and even failure -
as did the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, on Monday. But
officially denial is all. For retreat to be tolerable it must be called victory.

The US and British are covering their retreat. Operation Together Forward II has
been an attempt, now failed, to pacify Baghdad during Ramadan. In Basra, Britain
is pursuing Operation Sinbad to win hearts and minds that it contrives
constantly to lose. This may be an advance on Kissinger's bombing of Laos to
cover defeat in Vietnam and Reagan's shelling of the Shouf mountains to cover
his 1984 Beirut "redeployment" (two days after he had pledged not to cut and
run). But retreat is retreat, even if it is called redeployment. Every exit
strategy is unhappy in its own way.

Over Iraq the spin doctors are already at work. They are telling the world that
the occupation will have failed only through the ingratitude and uselessness of
the Iraqis themselves. The rubbishing of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has
begun in Washington, coupled with much talk of lowered ambitions and seeking out
that foreign policy paradigm, "a new strongman". In May, Maliki signalled to
Iraq's governors, commanders and militia leaders the need to sort out local
differences and take control of their provincial destinies. This has failed.
Maliki is only as strong as the militias he can control, which is precious few.
He does not rule Baghdad, let alone Iraq. As for the militias, they are the
natural outcome of the lawlessness caused by foreign occupation. They represent
Iraqis desperately defending themselves from anarchy. It is now they who will
decide Iraq's fate.

The only sensible post-invasion scenario was, ironically, that once attributed
to Donald Rumsfeld, to topple Saddam Hussein, give a decapitated army to the
Shias and get out at once. There would have been a brief and bloody settling of
accounts and some new regime would have seized power. The outcome would probably
have been partial or total Kurdish and Sunni secession, but by now a new Iraq
confederacy might have settled down. Instead this same partition seems likely to
follow a drawn-out and bloody civil conflict. It is presaged by the fall of
Amara to the Mahdist militias this month - and the patent absurdity of the
British re-occupying this town.

Washington appears to have given Maliki until next year to do something to bring
peace to his country. Or what? America and Britain want to leave. As a settler
said in Aden, "from the moment they knew we were leaving their loyalties turned
elsewhere". Keeping foreign troops in Iraq will not "prevent civil war", as if
they were doing that now. They are largely preoccupied with defending their
fortress bases, their presence offering target practice for insurgents and
undermining any emergent civil authority in Baghdad or the provinces. American
and British troops may be in occupation but they are not in power. They have not
cut and run, but rather cut and stayed.

The wretched Iraqis must wait as their cities endure civil chaos until one
warlord or another comes out on top. In the Sunni region it is conceivable that
a neo-Ba'athist secularism might gain the ascendancy. In the bitterly contested
Shia areas, a fierce fundamentalism is the likely outcome. As for Baghdad, it
faces the awful prospect of being another Beirut.

This country has been turned by two of the most powerful and civilised nations
on Earth into the most hellish place on Earth. Armies claiming to bring
democracy and prosperity have brought bloodshed and a misery worse than under
the most ruthless modern dictator. This must be the stupidest paradox in modern
history. Neither America nor Britain has the guts to rule Iraq properly, yet
they lack the guts to leave.

Blair speaks of staying until the job is finished. What job? The only job he can
mean is his own.